


spangled

by fannishliss



Series: Kink List [20]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: Civil War Trailer, Costumes, Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M, Memories, talking about Steve's costume for my kink list, the star spangled man with a plan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 12:24:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5828473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishliss/pseuds/fannishliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky asks Steve why he wore such an impractical costume to fight the Winter Soldier on the helicarrier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	spangled

**Author's Note:**

> This is for my kink list: Costumes. :)

“I just have one question,”  Bucky said. They were one step ahead of Tony’s team at the moment, with no idea how long that advantage would last.    
  
“Shoot,” Steve answered from his side of the pillow.  
  
Steve wasn’t a world-class spy like Natasha, so he didn’t have bolt-holes prepared in every major city like she seemed to.  This place was Clint’s; it was little, and dark, and dirty, but it had food and ammo, a working bathroom and a futon with clean sheets: Steve had known a lot worse.    
  
Bucky’s voice, behind him in the darkness, took Steve all the way back, to when nothing was more urgent than the next Dodgers game or the plot of the last Sabatini novel Bucky had checked out of the library.    
  
Bucky’s voice was deeper now, rusty and low.  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but when we fought on the helicarrier… weren’t you wearing your old costume — I mean, the one from the war?”  
  
Steve felt his blush rise, but refused to let himself feel embarrassed.  “Yeah,” he answered.  “Why?”  
  
Bucky was silent for a moment.  Steve could feel those keen blue eyes fixed on the back of his head, the eyes of a sniper.    
  
“What do you mean why? Hydra had some of the most advanced firepower in the world in their hands, and you go into the op wearing antique canvas?”  
  
Steve knew why he’d worn the suit, why he’d gone to the trouble of stealing it from the Smithsonian — but was he ready to reveal that reason to Bucky?  “You didn’t remember me, Buck.  Anything that might jog your memory — I had to use it.  One time, you told me you liked that costume.”  Steve remembered that fateful night, the night Bucky had signed on to follow Steve as part of the Howling Commandos.  
  
“And that’s why you wore it?”  Bucky’s quiet tones held a note of confusion.  
  
“I thought it might work to remind you of the old days.”  
   
“Well, not that get up,” Bucky said.  
  
Steve laughed a little. “What do you remember, then?”  
  
“I’ve had two years to try and get my head on straight. I read all the books, looked at the photos … but it didn’t all fit.”  
  
“No kidding, pal,” Steve said.  “Historians do the best they can, but they never get it all right.”  
  
“Where the different books agreed, I figured they got it right,” Bucky said. “That was really you, in the posters and  propaganda movies?”  
  
“I should count my blessings you don’t remember it,” Steve said.  
  
“Why?” Bucky asked.    
  
There were some clear differences between the Bucky now and the Bucky Steve had known in his youth.  The old Bucky always had a ready answer and a smile.  This new Bucky was far more serious, far less likely to push through discomfort with a joke.  Steve was glad Bucky trusted him enough to simply ask about what he didn’t understand.  
  
“I hated the propaganda tours,” Steve said.  “I mean, it was good for the bond effort, and they said it was good for morale — but I should have been on the front line, fighting.”  
  
“But why did I like the costume, if you hated it?”   The old Bucky would have thrown an arm across Steve’s shoulder.  This one didn’t touch him.    
  
“I don’t know,” Steve said.  “We were at a pub, in London, after you decided to join the Howlies.  You’d just met Peg for the first time — you remember, Agent Carter?”  
  
“She was an excellent fighter.” Bucky’s voice sounded slightly more formal when he made tactical assessments. Steve shivered a little at the reminder that part of Bucky would always be the Winter Soldier, but the most important thing was that Bucky was his own man again.    
  
“You got that right…. but she was the first woman ever who preferred me over you.”  
  
“She had good taste,” Bucky said.  
  
Steve didn’t know what to make of that comment. “That’s not what you said at the time.  You said you felt invisible.”  
  
“I did feel invisible,” Bucky said softly.  “I was terrified.  Hydra had changed me, but no one could tell.  You didn’t seem to notice.”  
  
The guilt grabbed Steve’s heart in its iron fist.  “I’m sorry, Buck. I did notice, but I thought it would be better to let you work things out in your own way.”  
  
“Not your fault,” Bucky said.  “I tried to act like I was doing better than I was.  I guess it worked, pretending I could get drunk, pretending to flirt with your girl.”  
  
“Huh,” Steve said. He remembered how awkward it had been, liking Peggy as much as he did, feeling at odds with Bucky in a way he never had before.    
  
“I think I remember some of that night,” Bucky said, “how good you looked in your captain’s uniform.  You looked better than I ever did.”  
  
“You remember it?” Steve said.  
  
“I think so,” Bucky said.  “I just remember your face, how happy you looked, how proud you were to finally be in command.  You finally got what you’d always wanted.”  
  
“Hm,” Steve said again. So many times in the past two years Steve had delved into the memories of fighting beside Bucky, trying to pick apart the gratitude he’d felt at being able to rely on Bucky like he always had, but at the same noticing the way his friend had changed, becoming quieter, darker.  Steve had never asked Bucky what was wrong: everyone knew war was hell and no one wanted to rake their buddy over the coals.  But Steve still wondered if things might have been different if he’d pried a little harder into what Bucky had suffered at Azzano.  
  
“I remember, being ready to follow you into the jaws of death,” Bucky said.    
  
Steve couldn’t answer. He wished there was some way to let Bucky know how sorry he was for the way things had turned out, the horrors Bucky had gone through. Words were so inadequate.  
  
“I was proud to follow you,” Bucky said softly.  “They never took that away from me. I always remembered it, even when I couldn’t remember who I was, or who you were exactly.  I knew there was a reason to follow the star— it mattered more than anything, to be true to who I was.”  
  
“Follow the star?”  Steve thought it sounded like a Christmas carol.  
  
“I could see it in my mind,” Bucky said.  “Sometimes I could see your face, or sometimes I even remembered your name. But, maybe because of the one on my arm, I always remembered the star.”  
  
“So I was right to wear the costume?” Steve asked.    
  
“You should have worn something better at stopping bullets,” Bucky said plainly.  “But when you dropped your shield — when I saw it falling away — something clicked in my mind.”  
  
“I guess I was just being sentimental,” Steve said.  “Everything is different now.  I wanted that one thing to be the same.  But it wasn’t.  Even when I put it on, it smelled like mothballs.  It felt so fragile.”  
  
“It did smell like mothballs,” Bucky said, cracking a grin.  “It bothered me, on the helicarrier — you smelled like a storage chest full of old clothes.”  
  
“You were pounding the crap out of me, and you thought I smelled like old clothes,” Steve laughed.    
  
“You did though!” Bucky laughed back.    
  
Laughter made the night feel safe.  Steve rolled over to face his friend, though they both were swathed in shadows.    
  
“You saved me,” Steve said.  “You could have killed me so many times on that helicarrier.  Why didn’t you?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Bucky said.  “I was fresh out of the wipe — nothing in my head but static and the orders to kill.  But I couldn’t.  It was kind of surreal, pulling the trigger and missing every time.”  
  
“Well, you didn’t kill me, but you didn’t exactly miss,” Steve denied.    
  
“Surviving the Winter Soldier’s bullet counts as a miss,” Bucky said. “Maybe I did recognize the costume after all?”  
  
“The look on your face,” Steve whispered into the darkness, “when you had me pinned. You didn’t make the kill.”  
  
“I can’t be sure,” Bucky admitted.  “It was so vague. You have to understand, that close to a wipe, I didn’t know anything.  But all of a sudden, seeing your face all covered in blood, it made me want to kill the guy who’d pushed you around — and it was me — I was the bad guy.  It stopped me cold.”  
  
“So after all the stuff I said to jar your memories, the costume and all, it was just my ugly mug?” Steve asked.    
  
Bucky’s left hand lifted, the metal plates whirring.  The metal fingers traced the line of Steve’s jaw, soft as a whisper.  Steve swallowed, all the longings of a lifetime tightening his throat.     
  
“You said were my friend — but you were my mission,” Bucky said.  His metal fingers still caressed Steve’s jaw, intact and whole.  “Beating you — obedience — compliance — it should have been the only thing I wanted.  But it wasn’t.” Bucky’s hand moved to Steve’s chin, fingers lightly touching Steve’s mouth.  
  
“There was a secret, buried so deep Hydra never found it,” Bucky whispered.    
  
“What’s that?” Steve said. His lips seemed super sensitive where Bucky’s metal fingers lay cool and smooth.    
  
“You,” Bucky said.  “You, Steve.  I kept you locked inside of me all that time.  I never gave you up.  Never.  I couldn’t.  You were the one good thing I kept safe at the bottom of my soul.  They were fools to try and make me kill you.  Never, Stevie.”    
  
Steve kissed Bucky’s fingers, letting all his loneliness and guilt and longing pour out as he gently nuzzled the unfeeling metal.    
  
“You’re there inside me, too, Buck,” Steve said.  
  
“I used to hold you,” Bucky said.  
  
“That’s right,” Steve answered, even though Bucky hadn’t said it like a question.  
  
“I want to hold you now,” Bucky said, another tactical assessment.    
  
“Okay,” Steve said, and rolled again.  Bucky moved closer, pulling Steve in against his body.  Bucky’s right arm slipped under Steve’s head, and his left hand rested lightly on Steve’s hip.  
  
Bucky’s back was to the wall and Steve was facing the door. He kept his eyes open.  “Do you think you can sleep?” Steve asked.  “I’ll stay awake.”  
  
Steve felt Bucky’s lips moving soft against the nape of his neck.  “I remember this, the smell of your hair.  I would’ve remembered you better without the mothballs.”  
  
“Jerk,” Steve said, outraged.    
  
He felt Bucky laughing.  “Punk,” his best friend retorted.    
  
Laughing together in the dark felt better than anything had in forever, even with a war they had triggered pitting his friends against each other.    
  
Steve lay vigilant, calm and alert, the Winter Soldier, his best friend, warm and safe behind him, relaxing into sleep. Steve kept his eyes open, and the darkness didn’t scare him.  Finally, he knew what made him happy.  Having Bucky was having everything.  


End file.
